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Noble House“Kavanagh,” a house of stories, makes an indelible impression on

all who enter. By Brad EmErson

Scant miles inland from the summer hubbub of Route 1 and the tourist-laden towns of the midcoast from Wiscasset to Newcastle is another world, one of soft back-roads passing ancient fields and quiet villages. One sees gentle rivers, white steeples,

and beautifully kept 18th and 19th century houses. But, even in this rich landscape, one is brought up short at the first sight around a bend of a great square yellow house set back from the street behind ancient lilacs. Its flush board façade is adorned with pilasters. A perfect Pal-ladian window looks out from above a semicircular portico, all surmounted by a large cupola behind a delicate balustrade. Nearby is a carriage house with a graceful row of arched doors. All seems unaltered in its setting of ample lawns against a background of ancient pines, be-low which a fragrant path winds to the shore of Damariscotta Lake.

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House of tHe MontH

“Kavanagh” is one of the great Federal houses of Maine, built in 1803 by James Kavanagh, the

richest man in the district. An Irish Catho-lic émigré, Kavanagh and his friend Mat-thew Cottrill left their native County Wex-ford to escape British oppression and ar-rived in Boston in 1780. By 1788, they’d moved to Newcastle on the Damariscot-ta River in what was then the Province of Maine. There they opened a general store and prospered. Soon they made wise in-vestments in lumber and shipbuilding, as well as the new toll bridge that connect-ed Newcastle to Damariscotta. In 1795, for £1,018, they purchased two lumber mills and a grist mill on 576 acres known as Lith-gow Farm, later adding a fulling mill–giv-ing rise to the name of Damariscotta Mills for the surrounding village. Now a very rich man, Kavanagh began to give back to

his community, building St. Patrick’s, the first Catholic Church in Maine.

In 1803, the time had come to build a house commensurate with his wealth and position, and in housewright Nicho-las Codd, also a an Irish émigré, Kavanagh found the perfect designer to give shape to his dreams. Little is known about Codd’s early years. His biographer, Andrew Gerri-er, notes that he came to Newcastle by 1801 after his marriage to Margaret Coffin of C

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Nantucket, perhaps brought there by Kava-nagh and Cottrill to build their own hous-es. By 1803, Codd’s first child was baptized by Bishop Carroll of Baltimore, who’d ar-rived to consecrate the new brick St. Mary’s donated by Kavana-gh. After those two houses, Codd went on to build a string of Maine’s finest Fed-eral-era houses, includ-ing the famous James Mc-Cobb “Spite House” in Phipps-burg and the Captain William Nick-els house for McCobb’s brother-in-law in Wiscasset. It is not known where Codd received his architectur-al training; in Boston, where he first lived after arriving in America, or in his native Ireland. It is clear that, as with most of the talented house-wright-architects of early 19th cen-tury New England, he made excel-lent use of the English and American architectural pattern books of the

day. As Earle Shettleworth noted in a re-cent conversation, Codd’s designs certain-

ly owe more to Federal New England–the Boston area in particular–than late

Georgian Ireland. Even so, the ex-terior of the house has Europe-an-inspired refinement. The flush board façade is meant to emulate smooth stone, the pi-lasters at the corner give gran-

deur, and a wooden belt course at second floor level emulates similar features in stone buildings. Passing through the large front door from the semi-circular portico, one is in a hall of unusually sophisticated detail for the time and place.

T he far end is apsidal, with a long curving stair rising to the second floor. Each broad and shallow step

is a wooden box set upon an-other in imitation of the self-supported stone stairs of Eng-land, and in the newel post is set an elaborately carved ivo-ry inlay, bearing the designer’s initials, “N.C.,” high tribute by the owners. The hall doors are trimmed with elegant mold-ing, ending with a flourish in scrolled volutes at floor lev-el, a feature unique in Maine. The attic was lit by a skylight whose source was an unusual glass floor in the cupola above, possibly added in Victorian times. The second floor hall is

large enough for a seating area in front of the beautiful pal-ladian window looking out to the

neighboring countryside. The eight major rooms of the main house are large and high with large windows with deep reveals con-taining folding shutters in each. Each room

has a chimney breast and fireplace project-ing from the end walls with elegant mantels. The drawing room is where Codd outdid himself, however, with a paneled wall with pilasters dividing doorways and arched cab-inets, with an intricately carved cove and bracket cornice surmounting the whole. On this writer’s recent visit with a noted deco-rator friend, the friend nearly gasped at the

proportions and light of main bedrooms, pronouncing them ‘superb.’ Behind the stair hall, a small first floor room, now a bath, with a large north-facing window, was des-ignated as a “Prayer Room,” completed in time for use by the former missionary Fa-ther Jean de Cheverus, soon to become the first Catholic Bishop of New England.

The rear wing, believed to be the ear-lier house on the site, has its own simpler charms, its lower ceilinged

rooms each with fireplace (there are 12 in the house), including the large cooking

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hearth in the original kitchen.“Kavanagh” is that increasing rarity—

a beautiful house that has always been ap-preciated and respected by its successive owners, retaining its architectural integri-ty inside and out. Kavanagh’s bachelor son, Edward, eschewed the family businesses, and, after a two-year Grand Tour of Eu-rope, went into law and politics, becoming a U.S. Congressman. In 1843, he became the 17th Governor of Maine. He lived at “Kavanagh,” built when he was eight years old, until his death in 1844, four years be-fore his father’s. After a Kavanagh daugh-ter, Winifred, made it her home, the house was purchased by Charles Perkins Gardin-er, member of a distinguished Boston fam-ily. Later his daughter Mary, the former wife of William Robinson Cabot, used it as a summer home. After her divorce, Mrs. Cabot lived for 30 years in London, return-ing to the house each fall with her two un-married daughters, both nuns, while rent-ing in the summers to her cousin’s hus-band, Mr. Winslow.

House of tHe MontH

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An old house is witness to many events. In 1854, with a wave of an-ti-Catholic sentiment sweeping

the region, and threats to burn St. Pat-rick’s in the air, the Church valuables were brought to “Kavanagh” for safekeeping. In the 1940s, the grand old house caught the imagination of a new neighbor, the poet Robert Lowell, living across the street with his wife, writer Jean Stafford. Although the house had always been loved and well maintained by its affluent owners, Lowell reimagined it as a gaunt survivor, the set-ting for his third book of poems, The Mills of the Kavanaughs.

In 1959, Admiral Frederick Gore Rich-ards and his family, who lived in a brick house in Newcastle village, were facing the construction of new Route 1 behind their house. Seeking a new home in the region, they happened upon “Kavanagh,” and became its new owners. It was a hap-py moment for the house, which was gen-tly updated and maintained with great sensitivity, and for the Richards fam-

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House of tHe MontH

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ily. The Richards’ grandchildren kind-ly shared memories of family life on the property: The lake and its shorefront of-fered “sailing and canoeing and swim-ming.” At 5 o’clock each evening, with military precision, the adults would gath-er for “cocktails and conversation while the children would receive ginger ale and peanuts, playing badminton, croquet, or tag.” A Richards granddaughter remem-bers “fitting up cushions for the window seat in the cupola,” making it her retreat at the top of the house, with drawing and writing materials at hand (sometimes “hiding from chores,” she confesses).

It is an extraordinary property, with some of the sensibilities of an English coun-try house, sitting romantically between country lane and lake, burnished by time and care. It has been fortunate in the respect accorded by owners across the generations, and one looks forward to the next chapter. The mansion is listed for $995,000, and tax-es are estimated at $9,000. n